EatingAsia

Scratching the Surface, Burrowing In

For the foreigner, this is what travel in much of urban Asia is: peering beyond the unsightful, coming to grips with the dirt and the smog, picking out the interest from the monotony, separating the individuals from the crowd, the flash of color from the black and grey and white. Getting past first impressions ("Ugly! Noisy! Smelly!"). Going against the instinct that advises sheltering in a cool, quiet, travellers' cafe. Putting oneself out there. Prying open the oyster to find the pearl.

A sense of humor helps. They may belch black clouds at thigh level but buses sport names that are priceless; the Bangkok tout with tall tales of sparkling gems at bargain prices (does anyone really fall for this scam?) elicits a chuckle and a roll of the eyes. One can only admire the persistence of the Saigon street salesman trying to peddle sunglasses to sunglassed tourists.

A special interest focuses the eye. The architecture-obsessed stroller rarely watches his feet, focusing eyes straight ahead and up instead, searching for the one shuttered shophouse surviving amongst a block of dull concrete boxes. Textile afficianados revel in the riot of vibrantly hued and richly pattterned batik, songket, and ikat that decorate many of southeast Asia's streets. Food-focused travelers, ever on the alert for the unknown nibble, approach the inhospitable Asian urban landscape as if on a treasure hunt. For us chaos is good; the most desirable destinations will always be those where snacks and meals can still be had streetside.

Colombo has all this. Yet somehow, three days after we'd arrived, we were still looking for a reason to like the place.

It may have been the heavy air. We were travelling in May, the city's second wettest month, and five minutes on the hoof saw our shirts stuck to our backs. Perhaps it was the city's confusing layout. Except for a two block-wide area paralleling the waterfront there's little discernible order to Colombo's sprawl. Leafy sidestreets dotted with pretty red tile-roofed Dutch bungalows give way without warning to mean, exhaust-fogged streets absent of sidewalks; some parts of the city, scarred from the 1983 riots, resemble pre-cease fire Beirut. We were targeted by hustlers at every turn, and there was no humor or gentle ribbing in their approach. In spite of a couple of excellent restaurant meals we couldn't get a bead on the local cuisine, not even its street food. Even the vendors that materialized at dusk seaside, on the sprawling cricket green fronting the historic Galle Face Hotel, offered little to pique our interest.

On our last afternoon we visited the Dutch Period Museum, a beautiful stuccoed building that, in the 17th century, served as the Dutch governor's residence before it was transformed into a seminary, and then a military hospital, and finally a post office. High ceilings and thick walls keep the museum's interior cool and muffle traffic noise. We spent a couple of hours poring over its exhibits, admiring the colonial furniture housed on its second floor, and lingering in the green and shady courtyard.

Afterwards, lacking both transport and a map, we wandered east and then, I think, north. Twenty sweaty minutes later we came to an early 20th-century church fronted by trucks piled high with produce, parked amidst mounds of rotting vegetal refuse - the loading 'dock' for a wholesale market.

We followed the roughly U-shaped road extending to the right, from the front of the church. Most of the market's stalls were closed, but a few small retail vendors - Tamils to a one - cried out to late-in-the-day shoppers. Dave pulled out his camera, we engaged a few hawkers, and suddenly Colombo clicked for us.

Small, ragged, and far from bustling, this market just barely qualified as picturesque. Though the produce was lovingly arranged in gorgeous displays we saw nothing unfamiliar (and thus titillating), nothing that we hadn't seen before at other markets in other tropical Asian countries.

Still, whatever it's name (I've not been able to locate it on a map), this market rates among my Top Ten. It came along - or we did - in the nick of time, welcoming us just as we were beginning to doubt whatever it was that had prompted us to head to Sri Lanka in the first place. A week later we returned home to Saigon regretting that we'd not had more time on that lush teardrop-shaped island.

Heading west from the market, towards the ocean and Colombo's landmark lighthouse, we traversed Sea Street, a specialist lane of goldsmiths. Shopkeepers pursued us aggressively, a few even following us a quarter of the way down the block. It didn't annoy as it might have a few hours before. Near the end of the street we stopped at a small open shopfront for bottled water. We chatted with the gregarious owner, mopped our faces with the napkins he offered, and downed a few Indian sweets. "We like this town," we agreed. We'd found the pearl.

Colombo wholesale (and small retail) food market, somewhere northeast of the Dutch Period Museum, perhaps near the junction of Sea Street and Abdul Cader (Sea Beach) Roads. Mornings, presumably.

Virtual Vacation: Bhutanese Chiles 'n Cheese

In the spring of 1998, when we were living in Shanghai, Dave and I spent two weeks in Bhutan. It was a splurge, meant to be our "last hurrah" in Asia before we returned to the US later in the year for good (or so we thought at the time).

Travelling by car along Bhutan's one road, we gawped at the magnificent, nearly untouched mountain landscape

dotted with majestic dzong (half administrative buildings-half monasteries).

We caught a few archery matches (it's the national sport),

met plenty of friendly locals,

noticed, after three or four days, that most of the country's traditional stone and wood houses are decorated with a phallus or two,

and marvelled that in this world there still existed a place that kept beat to such a leisurely rhythm.

In Bumthang, a Wild West sort of town set deep in an impossibly green, fertile valley, we joined Bhutanese villagers who journeyed for miles, mostly on foot and dressed in their finest clothes,

for a spectacular three-day Tibetan Buddhist festival. After two days of music and dances, performed by monks resident at the hilltop dzong where it was held,

the festival culminated in a feverishly emotional mass blessing in which attendees were fed pieces of dough representing a demon who, on the festival's second day, had been vanquished and killed by the gods.

What we did not do in Bhutan, unfortunately, was find a whole lot of deliciousness. Most towns didn't have restaurants, so we were obliged to take meals in our hotel with other tourists. Always served buffet-style (a particular dislike of mine), lunches and dinners generally consisted of the sort of food Bhutanese tourism officials must have imagined foreigners preferred to eat: bland, overcooked, and often pseudo-Chinese.

There were a few bright spots. After pestering our guide (required for all tourists at the time, and probably still) for seven days straight we finally scored a breakfast not of fluffy, tasteless toast and greasy scrambled eggs, but of Bhutanese red rice porridge - thick and creamy like congee, but flavored with savory smoked pork hock, zippy dried red chilies, and numbing ground Sichuan peppercorn. In Bumthang, we found local, freshly made apple cider, a wonderfully hoppy and refreshing microbrew, and - thanks to the presence of a Swiss-owned dairy farm - richly milky tomato and cheese tarts.

On our third night we tried ema daji, a Bhutanese dish of plump green jalapeno-like chiles in a thin cheese sauce. Fantastically fiery chili heat balanced by creamy, mild-flavored cheese - just the sort of flavorful, highly spiced break we needed from gloppy hot and sour pork and stir-fried mystery meat with cashews. We spooned it up with nutty Bhutanese red rice that night, and the next, when it showed up again on the buffet table. And then the next several nights as well ... until we were so sick of the darned stuff just the sight of it could turn our stomachs.

By the time we left Bhutan ema daji was a bad dream, a black spot on our otherwise wonderful trip to Bhutan. I buried it deep in my subconscious where it slept soundly ... until Reid at Ono Kine Grindz and Alan at maona announced a Virtual Vacation one-off MeMe.

When I read the assignment - to share the recipe for a dish sampled on holiday - ema daji popped into my head. Wondering if eight years had cured me of my phobia I cooked up a batch, and found it to be - as scrumptious as the first time I tasted it. Many thanks to Reid and Alan for inspiring me to reinvestigate this altogether ambrosial dish. The single smear on my memories of Bhutan is wiped clean.

UPDATE, February 22: I won! I do believe it's the first time I've won anything in my life. My prize? A boxload of edible Hawaiian swag. I'll be blogging it.

Ema Daji (Bhutanese Chiles 'n Cheese)

This recipe is adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's "Mangoes & Curry Leaves" . They call it "Chile-Hot Bhutanese Cheese Curry" and include tomatoes, which I've omittted, because I never encountered them in the versions of the dish I sampled (or the ones I avoided) in Bhutan. Ema daji is all about fire (the chiles) and fire extinguisher (the dairy). I could swear the chiles used in Bhutan are jalapenos or a variation thereof, but you can use any kind you like. Go ahead and tone down the heat with a milder chile if you must, but do use a flavorful one (no plain green bell peppers!). If your fresh chiles aren't spicy enough, add cayenne with the cheese.

Outside of big towns where fresh, mild cheese can be bought at the market, Bhutanese cooks used Indian canned cheese. Alford and Duguid suggest feta and I found it to be an excellent substitute; the brining lends the finished product a sort of gamey aroma which seems right. Other possibilities are farmer's cheese, a Mexican cheese like queso fresco, or haloumi, if it's not too salty. Don't go the route of cheddar - the cheese should be mild enough that the taste of the chilies comes through.

The final result, which is soupy, is best served warm rather than hot, with Bhutanese red rice. Brown rice would work well too. A simple stir-fried green vegetable or a mound of golden oven-roasted carrots with cumin would round out the meal nicely. This is sublime comfort food that warms you up from the inside.

1 1/2 cups of water

heaped 3/4 cup of chiles that have been cut into 1 to 2-inch lengths (deseeded or not - its' up to you)

1 large onion, cut in half vertically and then sliced into then half circles

2 tsp. vegetable oil

5 plump cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped or mashed to a paste

250 grams feta or other mild, non-melting cheese

salt, if needed

a handful of fresh coriander leaves, torn into small pieces

Bring the water to a boil in a medium pan and add the chiles, onion, and oil. Cover, reduce heat to a strong simmer, and cook for about 15 mins.

Add the garlic and return to a boil, reduce heat again and simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the garlic and chiles are soft.

Stir in the cheese and simmer for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir once, then cover and set aside for 10 mins.

Taste and add salt if needed. Serve sprinkled with a few bits of coriander leaf.